Mike EhrmannBy nature, gamblers are a cursed bunch. They are always getting shafted or screwed; after all, who could have foreseen that back-up point guard for Alabama with nine career threes hitting one from deep at the buzzer to cover the 14-point spread? Granted, why any misguided soul would be betting on SEC basketball in the first place is a question best left unanswered, but there's a reason “degenerate” is used ad nauseam to describe this bunch.
But there are tales of poor bastards' fortune changing, spurring just enough hope the same providence is on the horizon for every beleaguered better. This is one of the incidents.
A dumb, fluky incident.
A man that goes by the Twitter handle “GarbageTimeKid”—clearly one who knows the SEC theoretical above all too well—tried to place a bet on Shane Lowry at this year's U.S. Open after listening to the advice of Action Network's Jason Sobel. Alas, the GarbageTimeKid was a bit negligent when pulling the trigger, backing ..

We expected great content to come from Shane Lowry's claret jug celebrations in the wake of his popular six-shot win at the 148th Open Championship. And so far, so good. But the best thing to surface in the 24 hours since Shane's maiden major victory came from an unlikely source: His grandmother.
RELATED: The story of the Open's final round in 9 (or so) sentences
In an adorable—and hilarious—chat with RTE News, Emily Scanlon gushes about how proud she is of her grandson. But she also says that Sunday's final round drove her to drink. And not in celebration.
When asked how it was watching the drama unfold, here was her fantastic response:
“Oh, terrible. Emotional now, it was,” Scanlon says. “I hadn't slept last night. I hadn't drank a brandy since 2009 and I drank two yesterday—it's nearly killing me.”
Amazing. Here's the (instant) classic clip that might be the greatest post-round interview in Open Championship history:
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The R&A decided to move tee times up for Sunday's final round of the 148th Open Championship because of a bad forecast, but that didn't save golfers from playing in extremely difficult conditions at times. And Justin Thomas wants fans to know it was even worse than it looked on TV.
RELATED: The story of the Open's final round in 9 (or so) sentences
On Monday, Thomas shared a short video taken by his dad while he neared the end of his round. And while you still won't actually get wet watching it, you'll get a better feel for what JT and others played through at Royal Portrush.
https://twitter.com/JustinThomas34/status/1153357551171493889
Looks fun, huh?
To Thomas' credit, he handled the elements better than most, shooting a one-over-par 72 and winding up T-11 for the week, the best Open finish of his young career. NBC's cameras caught him having to back off a chip shot on No. 16, but he regrouped, hit one close and made par.
The weather got Thomas good..

These days, double plays are nothing special. Sure, they're great when they bail your closer out of a jam in the ninth, but in a baseball world that's pumping out four-man outfields, state championship-winning triple plays and dingers by the dinger bucketful, the ol' double play has become little more than a staple—the mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving dinner, if you will. Every now and then, however, a double gets turned that's so incredibly, wonderfully beautiful that you can't help but dedicate an entire little corner of the internet to its worship. Ladies and gentleman, look upon the glory and weep:
https://twitter.com/FlorenceFreedom/status/1153120622773493762
Paint this on vases and chapel ceilings for future civilizations to behold. It all starts with sharply hit grounder up the middle that takes tricky hop off the mound which forces the second baseman to fully extend, flipping the ball to the shortstop who comes screaming over to cover second, bare handin..

The oldest championship in golf deserves a more prominent spot on the golf calendar.

Normally, golfers don't need to be warned to avoid water. But that's the reminder issued at one of the country's most premier courses, following environmental concerns raised by a local paper.

At the close of one of Shane Lowry's countless interviews on Sunday evening after winning the 148th Open Championship, he was asked how big the party is going to be tonight? “Oh—it's going to be all week,” Lowry responded with a wide grin. “All week.”
RELATED: The story of Sunday at the Open in 9 (or so) sentences
From the looks of it, things are off to a great start.
Here's Lowry piling in the car with his latest trophy—and his wife, Wendy—and driving home to Ireland from Royal Portrush to celebrate:
FacebookPinterestHere's Lowry singing—and boozing—with the claret jug:
https://twitter.com/garhazer/status/1153242094187831297
Here he is sharing golf's oldest prize—and more booze—with others:
https://twitter.com/ConorSketches/status/1153251411125329921
And here's Lowry waking up in bed with. . . you guessed it, the claret jug:
FacebookPinterestRise and shine, big guy. You've got a lot more celebrating to do.
RELATED: The surprising place where Shane Lo..

Stan BadzThis story from ESPN summarizes the nation-wide heat nightmare that struck Major League Baseball on Saturday (and again on Sunday), and includes passages like this one:
Hours before Baltimore played Boston at sweltering Camden Yards, Orioles manager Brandon Hyde pulled aside starting catcher Chance Sisco and issued a stiff directive.
“I told Chance, 'Do not go outside until the game starts,'” Hyde said.
Elsewhere, fans who were brave (stupid?) enough to attend these games were plied with hydration stations and mist machines, along with endless warnings from the PA announcers. Almost nobody took batting practice at any of these stadiums. In Chicago, Cubs fans gave a standing ovation to a rogue breeze.
Now, in my opinion? Summer was already pretty terrible when it was the 1990s and I lived in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York where it never got very hot because of the altitude. Today, in North Carolina, in the era of full-on global warming and a heat index t..

No longer in the shadows of Irish golf, Shane Lowry now has his name etched on the base of the silver claret jug

No longer in the shadows of Irish golf, Shane Lowry now has his name etched on the base of the silver claret jug